What changes on 16 October
The standalone Microsoft Whiteboard apps for Windows, iOS, and Android retire on 16 October 2026.
- With a personal Microsoft account, the app has shown this notice since 25 September: “you will no longer be able to create or edit whiteboards. Please export any whiteboards you’d like to keep before October 16, 2026, after which they will be permanently deleted.” Installed apps then display “a retirement experience instead of opening the Whiteboard gallery or whiteboard content”, according to Microsoft. Export your boards before 16 October.
- With a work or school account, boards stored in OneDrive stay available in Whiteboard in Teams and on the web. Boards still stored in Azure are deleted on 16 October.
Export a board as a ZIP
Open the board in the Microsoft Whiteboard app for Windows, then:
- Select Settings, the gear at the top right.
- Select Export.
- Under Full export, select Zip (HTML+JSON) and save the file.
1 Settings, 2 Export, 3 Zip (HTML+JSON). The ZIP holds the board’s page and its comments.
Repeat the steps for each board, because each ZIP holds one board. Image and PDF save a picture of the board, without the separate strokes, notes, and text. The ZIP opens in SQLBI Whiteboard at any time, including after 16 October, so you can export your boards now and bring them across later.
Open it in SQLBI Whiteboard
Install SQLBI Whiteboard, or run winget install SQLBI.Whiteboard. Use File → Open on the ZIP to create a new board from it, and Save to keep it as a .wboard file. File → Import, or dropping the ZIP on a board, adds it below the current content.
The board opens untitled, and Save suggests the name of the export.
What comes across
- Ink at the same pen widths, and highlighter strokes.
- Pictures, GIFs, stickers, and the pages of inserted PDFs.
- Shapes with their fill, outline, angle, and text.
- Sticky notes and note grids, as shapes in the same colors with their text.
- Text boxes, lists, tables drawn with ink, connectors, and links.
- Templates from the Windows 10 app, with their title and what is placed on them, and groups, as the objects in them.
- Loop components as links to them, and Azure DevOps work items with their title, owner, and state.
- Comments, as text beside the board with the names of their authors.
A highlighter stroke has one width, and Rainbow and Galaxy ink become one color. Elbow connectors become straight, and reactions on notes become a line of text in the note. The background color is left out, and an object the export shows as a placeholder stays one. After the import, a message lists anything the board did not bring across.
SQLBI Whiteboard keeps each board in a file on your PC and has no real-time collaboration. Compare lists the differences from Microsoft Whiteboard.